


you die first.

by morgiah



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: Angst, Battle, Death, M/M, Mage’s Guild, Magic, The King of Worms, Tragic Romance, Worm Cult
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-23 19:50:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21086870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgiah/pseuds/morgiah
Summary: Vanus stood ever glorious, staff in hand, head held high. The sun shone on the horizon behind him, his body blocking the rays. It was fitting. It made him look as bright as his soul. Mannimarco could see the well-hidden trembling of his fingers, uncertainty in his eyes. Did the same memories trouble him? Or did he simply fear death? It mattered not.“Surrender, Worm King,” he said proudly, his voice giving no way to the conflict in his eyes. “Hand over your artifacts and their power to me, and you shall live until dead sees fit.”Mannimarco took his own staff out from behind him, holding it against the ground in front of him. His lips curled into a deathly smile and he let out a hollow laugh.“You die first.”





	you die first.

**Author's Note:**

> this is a work i had published on an old account that i deleted for personal reasons. i'm starting to get back into tes and i'm still super proud of this work, so here it is again :)

Mannimarco had felt nothing when he sent cultists to ransack Mage’s Guild encampments, to slaughter his rivals companions and raise them for his army. He didn’t care when Vanus was present at those encampments, not a bit. He took the lack of feeling as a sign that he’d finally slipped from the grasp of the last bits of mortality he had, and there was no greater relief. But as he stood before his once lover on the battlefield, he realized it was simply because his subconscious knew Vanus would be fine. The Great Mage could handle himself. There was possibly no living thing on Nirn that could defeat him, besides Mannimarco himself. 

He didn’t want to kill him. After all this time, after everything, he didn’t want Vanus dead. He wasn’t finished playing their game. There was no love, of course. Only memories of it and ghostly sensations, reminders of the way their fingers had touched the others skin. They distracted him, brought him back to a time when he’d been young and weak. He channeled the sudden fear of weakness he felt into anger, and stepped forward once more. 

Vanus stood ever glorious, staff in hand, head held high. The sun shone on the horizon behind him, his body blocking the rays. It was fitting. It made him look as bright as his soul. Mannimarco could see the well-hidden trembling of his fingers, uncertainty in his eyes. Did the same memories trouble him? Or did he simply fear death? It mattered not. 

“Surrender, Worm King,” he said proudly, his voice giving no way to the conflict in his eyes. “Hand over your artifacts and their power to me, and you shall live until dead sees fit.” 

Mannimarco took his own staff out from behind him, holding it against the ground in front of him. His lips curled into a deathly smile and he let out a hollow laugh. 

“You die first.”

It was not a threat, nor a hope, but a promise. Though his pride screamed at him for admitting it, he knew very well his army was no match for Vanus’. But Vanus would die that day. No matter that the last of his humanity begged him not to. Vanus was his greatest weakness, he’d always been. He needed to die. Every other weakness had been crushed, and he would make no exceptions. 

The battle raged around them, but the two ex-lovers stayed focused on each other. No one bothered them or tried to help, on both of their orders. Mannimarco even refrained from raising dead to fight Vanus for him. This was between them. This tragic dance had started with them and would end with them. 

Mannimarco’s snarls synchronized with Vanus’ shouts. The air smelled of ozone and rotting flesh. Lightning clashed with frost clashed with flames. It could have been beautiful. 

It was all a matter of luck. Their talents were equal. Neither of them tired, neither of them used spells stronger than the other. The deciding factor would be a single moment. And that moment was when Vanus stepped on a tree root. He lost his balance for a second, and was hit by a particularly vile shock spell. He fell. 

Mannimarco rushed forwards and caught the mage before he could hit the ground. Knowing if he hesitated he might stop himself, or Vanus might retaliate, two conjured daggers were immediately plunged into skin. One between the ribs and one directly into the liver. Vanus’ death would begin the moment they were pulled out. Pained blue eyes looked into empty yellow ones and suddenly the Worm King couldn’t move. He could barely remember such intense emotion, he didn’t know what to call them. But they were there, and if he remembered how to cry he was afraid he would’ve. 

“I die first,” Vanus breathed, and a dark chuckle turned into the coughing up of blood. Mannimarco’s jaw was clenched and his grip tightened around the Great Mage. He flinched as shaky fingers raised to stroke his face. Blood was beginning to leak out around the blades from the wounds. 

“We both knew it would end like this,” he continued, closing his eyes, and Mannimarco panicked. He opened them again a second later. “You have defeated me. I have no last wishes but to die in your arms, if that is alright. If you ever loved-“ he paused. The hand on Mannimarco’s cheek reached to the back of his head and pushed his face close. Vanus studied him for a moment before releasing him in horror.

“No,” he choked out in a sob, suddenly unable to look at the necromancer. “You’re not you. What have you done to yourself, Mannimarco? You-“ more coughing. More blood. His breathing was shallowing. “This is my fault. I couldn’t help you. I didn’t try hard enough,” his eyes locked with the others again. “You’ve transformed yourself into an abomination because of me.”

The King of Worms brought a slender finger to the dying mer’s lips. “It matters not now, Vanus,” Mannimarco paused in an emotion he could not name. Saying his first name out loud was much too familiar and intimate. “With your death comes the finality of my undeath. My last wish is to hold you as it comes to that. If you ever loved me,” fingers brushed through long white hair and cold lips pressed against a warm forehead. “You will grant me that luxury.”

Vanus nodded. He used the last of his magicka to snap his fingers, and suddenly the blades embedded in him were gone. Blood spilled from his wounds and seeped into the earth beneath them. Mannimarco panicked again. He wasn’t ready, why would he do that before he was ready?

“I wasn’t going to sit with daggers inside of me forever, Manni,” Vanus murmured, exhaustion and pain causing him to forget himself and an age-old pet name sneaking past his lips. His breaths were shaky and laced with pain and Mannimarco realized his last one would be in any second. 

Mortality broke down walls. You were my world, he wanted to say, but the words lodged in his throat. You were the only thing I’d ever loved besides myself. I didn’t think I was capable of love until I met you. I loved you I loved you I loved you I loved you.

Vanus smiled weakly, his hands reaching for the others. “I know,” he assured in a barely audible whisper. Mannimarco started, he was sure he hadn’t said the words out loud. How had he heard?

He had no time to ask. Vanus squeezed his fingers lightly, let out one final shuddering gasp, then his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he was dead. 

While the battle continued around them, the Worm Cult being slaughtered with ease, all Mannimarco heard was a ringing in his ears. He waited for it to pass. For him to finally slip out of his own mortalities grasp forever. But it didn’t. The grief clinged to him as he knelt on the ground with the corpse of a man he once loved in his arms. It stayed when he gathered it into his arms and summoned a portal to his safehouse. 

“He’s taking Vanus!” A Guild member had shouted, causing others to roar in rage and turn their attentions on him. He was gone in a flash. 

Vanus was his. He’d always been his. He was better than his pompous Guild, and towards the end he knew it. What a shame, the necromancer thought, that he’d still never lived up to full potential. And now he lay on an altar in a Worm Cult safehouse, bloodied and filthy and dead. His hand was outstretched, palm up, besides his body, as if begging Mannimarco to take it. The latter reached for it, then stopped himself. 

The Great Mage would be a powerful thrall indeed. Mannimarco could use the power that had never been his in life, in death. His hand raised. 

You claim to have loved him, yet you would curse him to this. This is not the death he deserves.

Mannimarco hesitated. He never hesitates. 

Give him to Arkay. Swallow your pride and let him be with his gods. 

“No!” The Worm King snarled out loud at the voice in his head. “They do not deserve him.”

And you do?

He sent a bolt at a nearby table in frustration. Torture tools and soul gems and blades clattered onto the stone floor. He turned and grasped the hand from earlier and held it to his lips. The cold flesh somehow still radiated the goodness of Vanus. He closed his eyes, whispering in Altmeris, “Forgive me.”

Vanus corpse shuddered and groaned. His once marvelous blue eyes, as blue as the seas around Artaeum, were clouded and glazed. Mesmerizing golden skin was now a dull grey. It was void and empty and obedient, standing before its master, waiting to do his bidding. 

Mannimarco was truly gone in that moment. The last emotion the powerful lich ever felt was regret, and it continued to haunt him. Even after he forgot what love felt like; sleepy Sundas mornings, sea salt and lavender soap, fluttering kisses. The ghost of regret implanted itself inside him. No matter how many souls he took, how many people pledged themselves to his service, it persisted. It was awful and cold and mortal. 

But it was Vanus. He never tried to fight it.


End file.
